I hate the **** I vote for either Sam Rockwell too, or Walton 'Shane from The Shield' Goggins as he's a top actor and a great Texan accent. Patrick Stewart as the bald, (Stewart as a bald man? That'll be a stretch for him) angry assasin, Starr; that had his tackle shot/cut off. And Jonathan Ross as Arseface. God that furore has gotten ridiculous and gone on stupidly WAYYYYYYYY to long. I hate the media as much as i do the big G. Except Empire of course :-)E)

I still think an HBO series would've been better (although without the input of MSJ) but with Mendes directing this film does now have a fighting chance, at least.

Mendes is a great pick. Not confident it can be done though

Agreed 100%.

The only good thing about this change is that we have been delivered from Mark Steven Johnsons clutches, as director and writer has almost no redeeming features. His deals in two main types of concept, cheese and cliche. For example he insists on using rock-pop over slo-mo sex scenes. How he could have made a more mediocre film than DD and Bullseye, i have no idea. Its not that they are all bad, in fact its almost worse that they are mediocre a syou can almost see the good ideas trying to get through.

BTW Wes Bently in Ghostrider = Worst film bad guy ever.

Lets face it if you cant make a good DD or GR film which has lighter touches, how on earth could you make Preacher, the most balls to the floor badass contoversial comic ever?

I don't see it being made either. I'm frankly amazed that it's got as far as to have a director solidly attached enough to make news. It'd definitely make a better series than film, but even that... I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm worried enough about how the characters would be written (without an incredibly light touch they could all become truly horrible people) that I'm not that worried about the actors, though they have to find a Tulip with depth and a Cassidy with a convincing Irish accent... preferably convincing to actual Irish people as well as Californians.

Pretty excited about this, but how many films are they planning? One film won't do it - it will be a confused mess, and that's just to those familiar with it. Are fans going to be telling people how great the comic was when the film was cack? It needs at LEAST a trilogy, but the HBO series idea was definitely the way to go. Anyone else see Matthew McConaughey for Jesse? Dye his hair black, he'll do. Or he would have done a few years ago, anyway.

Ok, Herr Starr would be a great role for Stellan Skarsgård. Cassidy? Tim Roth! Saint of Killers? Danny Trejo? Graham Greene? Ron Perlman? I'm leaning towards Christian Bale for Preacher. But he is already batman, which is also DC. How about Ryan Gosling? Tulip? no idea!

Does anyone else think this is a bad idea? Why remake such an excellent series in a format that is unlikely to do it justice?

The idea of 9 hour-long episodes might work, but the likelihood of the films improving on, or even matching, the source material is pretty slim. Call me a spoilsport, but I kinda hope this doesn't ever happen.